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Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

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Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#71

Post by wtetzner »

gmarx wrote: post #29
mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

Funny (ironic?) thing is that each incremental advance in civilization may be a good thing in isolation and, given the choice between adding benefit X to their existing situation or not, most people would choose adding benefit X without hesitation. And yet, somehow the sum of hundreds of such benefits (secure food, healthcare, fire departments, internet) doesn't lead to a significant increase in average happiness. In…

I wonder if it's because of the kinds of stress people in western societies deal with. Humans have always had to deal with stress, but the modern world seems to have more "intangible" kinds of stress. It's one thing to be stressed about being in danger from a predator. The stress drives you to action, and you either survive or don't. But the kinds of stress people deal with now is somehow different. Most of the time, the things you're stressed about won't kill you, but the stress won't go away either. Worrying about money to pay rent, etc. The stress drives people to make enough money to make this month's rent, but that same stress will constantly be there, because of next month's rent.

I dunno if this makes any sense, just something that popped into my head.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#72

Post by neltnerb »

charles-salvia wrote: post #23

I think a lot of the resentment felt by the rural American poor has to do with their perception that they are constantly ignored or overlooked, while similarly impoverished inner-city minorities are at least given some kind of institutional sympathy. It's hard to say how true this really is, or how much of it is simply further fuel for pre-existing racism, but apparently this perception is ubiquitous enough that it c…

I don't think there's anything broken just because you feel both sympathy and resentment for the same people. The real world is complicated, and it's good that you're able to admit that you have this internal conflict.

I will point out that there is one big blind spot I'm seeing in stuff like this. I suspect that you're conflating middle class white voters in conservative cities with poor rural white people and lumping them all together as "white rural voters". You shouldn't assume that they're a bloc, even in California lots of people are conservative and vice versa.

Every state has lots of open minded people who just want to find joy in their lives like everyone else. I grew up in Indiana, and if we want to go full anecdote, one example is my Boy Scout leader saying he'd stand by me against the national organization's anti-gay policies if push came to shove. Or NOBCChE letting me in because there was no other way to do the science fair at my high school. They didn't even tell me what NOBCChE stood for, and somehow I literally never noticed that I was the only person there who wasn't black. There are good people everywhere. Everywhere.

I have very little resentment for poor white people. I am very resentful of well off people voting for their own power, comfort, religious authority, and low taxes over the well being and safety of millions of people.

The data is enlightening, and I'll refrain from editorializing it: http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls

So yeah, I'm very sympathetic to anyone who is having a hard time. Especially those who see no way out. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with things that hurt me and my friends -- especially when that pain inflicted does nothing to actually alleviate anyone else's problems.

Kicking out immigrants or forcing gays into the closet or preventing transgender people from using the bathroom or preventing minorities from voting or making Jews fear for their lives won't help the opioid crisis or provide financial security. Treating these things like they are in any way intrinsically related is a huge problem in framing that results in poor tactics.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#73

Post by mmsimanga »

acchow wrote: post #68
mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

Incredible. Can you talk about how you learned programming and the obstacles you hit along the way? (financially, health, or actual educational obstacles). How did you get a programming job? Also, as others have noted, there is survivorship bias in your experience. If you or one of your siblings were born with a disability or became disabled in some way from a sickness, the experience would probably be quite bad.

I had replied to an earlier thread. In short, moved to town, went to school in town. Touched first PC in University at the age of 21.

Alot of the adaptation happened as a kid. I went to school not knowing a word of English. I don't even know how I learnt the language. Kids adapt. They are less self conscious. So I guess every new environment was new for as long as it took to adapt.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#74

Post by vkou »

magic_beans wrote: post #67
amalag wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true, poor people in those places really don't need much. You can live, eat grow for almost nothing. People can have happy lives without much money.

It's even true in city outskirts (e.g. the homeless encampments around San Francisco, Skid Row in LA).

The thing about homeless encampments is that (frequency depends on the city) every few months/years, the police raid them, evict the residents, and steal/burn everything that the residents can't carry out.

The mayor claps his hands, makes a press release about how great it is that we've finally cleaned up this den of filth/violence/drug abuse, while the homeless get to sleep under bridges for a few months.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#75

Post by thrownblown »

tankenmate wrote: post #19
thrownblown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Bangladesh have a systemic prescription opiate problem? How about an illegal heroin problem?

Bangladesh borders one of the bigger opiate exporting nations of the world Myanmar (Burma) and the borders are largely porous. I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised if getting heroin would be very easy in Bangladesh.

I'm not convinced that ease of access to illicit opiates is a major driver for addiction. I'm sure there's a bunch of good dope that's cheap and easily found.

I'm curious on the differing levels of use/abuse. My gut tells me that Bangladesh opiate consumption OD rates are lower than Appalachian.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#76

Post by gmarx »

wtetzner wrote: post #71
gmarx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny (ironic?) thing is that each incremental advance in civilization may be a good thing in isolation and, given the choice between adding benefit X to their existing situation or not, most people would choose adding benefit X without hesitation. And yet, somehow the sum of hundreds of such benefits (secure food, healthcare, fire departments, internet) doesn't lead to a significant increase in average happiness. In…

I wonder if it's because of the kinds of stress people in western societies deal with. Humans have always had to deal with stress, but the modern world seems to have more "intangible" kinds of stress. It's one thing to be stressed about being in danger from a predator. The stress drives you to action, and you either survive or don't. But the kinds of stress people deal with now is somehow different. Most of the time,…

I've read this is why soldiers like combat deployments. I always figured war was something you were drafted into and were terrified most of the time. There is a subset of the population who enjoy soldiering and this is part of why

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#77

Post by charles-salvia »

gamblor956 wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever lived in the "inner city"?

Yes. I've also lived in rural America. While there are significant populations of lazy dolists in both, the population of do-nothings is much higher in rural America. Rural America really does believe that everyone has forgotten about them, and blame all their problems on other people while they happily do meth or get drunk all day in their trailers. The thing is...they're right. Because they live so far from any pla…

Well, Donald Trump matters. And he thought about them. And this is where we are.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#78

Post by vijayr »

mmsimanga wrote: post #18

I was born in an African village, literally in a mud hut. I spent the first 9 years of my life in a village. The town I grew up in wasn't far from the village so I spent holidays in the village too. I now work in IT and try keep up with the latest frameworks. That is I am not concerned with starving to death and I have health insurance. If I compare my upbringing with my daughter's, there is nothing to compare. We wa…

Everything around us seems to be optimized for efficiency, speed and profits. Nothing is optimized for happiness anymore, unless that happiness is directly tied to someone's profits. And we are all judged on weird metrics - ("40 and still writing code, not in management?" "don't want to have kids?", "don't want to own a house?" etc all followed by "what is wrong with you?"). And everything seems complicated too - I just read somewhere that credit card agreements are like dozens of pages today, vs a couple of pages before.

Like you, I also wonder the same - fancy electronics, cars, running water etc are all great, but how much of it truly contribute to one's laughter, happiness, health etc?

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#79

Post by Brendinooo »

empath75 wrote: post #25
empath75 wrote: post #12

I noticed when traveling through Central America, that while extreme poverty is everywhere, homelessness seems to be quite rare (with the caveat that I didn't spend much time in the capital cities, so the situation there may be different). I think there are two reasons for it: 1) People don't seem to be as mobile, in general, and you'll find 3 generations of family living very close to each other quite often. I was h…

Just want to be clear that I don't want to paint to rosy a picture of what poverty looks like in Central America. It's not uncommon to see a single mom with a family of three or more kids living in a tin shack with a dirt floor. It's fucking heartbreaking to see. And you know that you could spend a few hundred bucks and help change their lives, but there are a billion more people just like them in the world. We in th…

I know there's balance to this issue - I once spent an afternoon at a shantytown located in a garbage dump in Managua. Worldview-changing, especially when the interpreter noted that some people felt fortunate to at least have work to do in the dump.

But some things certainly are a matter of perspective. My grandmother was one of 13 kids, 12 of which survived early childhood. The way she describes it, they all lived in one three-bedroom house in a steel town: one bedroom for the parents, one for the girls, and one for the boys.

So, 14 people in a house that, assuming it was an average-sized house from that era that you see in these parts, was probably about 1,200-1,500 square feet. That'd be pretty unthinkable to your average American today (outside of NYC/SF, anyways).

"Keeping up with the Joneses", coupled with a lot of land, probably our economic policies, and other factors, has certainly moved the needle on what an acceptable home looks like.

Re: Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?

#80

Post by Nomentatus »

xyzzy4 wrote: post #8

The poor in Bangladesh are at least allowed to have shelter in slums. Anywhere in the US it would be highly illegal and violate many regulations.

Witnessing the loss of squatter's rights across much of the industrialized world is one of the most shocking things I've experienced during my lifetime.
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